Halliburton and Oil Stock Essay

The Multi National Corporation or the MNC Halliburton is
the second largest oilfield services corporation operating in more than 70
countries providing quality expertise and oil related operations.

With
a workforce of over 50,000 people the corporation owns thousands of different subsidiaries,
affiliates, branches and divisions all over the world. Headquartered in
Houston, Texas the company is currently run by David J. Lesar who is the
president, Chairman and the CEO of the company. The corporation has long time
been related to Energy Services Group or the ESG which provides technical
services for petroleum and natural gas exploration and production.

Halliburton
has also been closely related to KBR which was involved in the construction of
oil, gas and chemical pipelines and refineries for the company. In 2007 the
company decided to break ties with KBR with which it had been working for 44
years. During the course of this discussion we would particularly be focusing upon
the fluctuations and the crests and troughs that the corporation went through and
the ways through which such changes affected the financial performance of the
organization. Furthermore we would also be shedding light upon the controversies
and issues that surrounded the company during the most crucial periods of
American politics and economy.

Halliburton and the 9/11
episode

The attack on the World Trade Centre on the 11th of
September rattled the social, political and economic foundation of the country,
the New York Stock Exchange or the NYSE remained closed from the 11th
till the 17th of September. In order to avert the possibility of a
financial crisis the Federal Reserve decided to pump liquidity of $100 billion
per day for three consecutive days following the attack. In addition to this
gold price all over the world skyrocketed from $215.50 to $287 per ounce
whereas oil prices also spiked upwards but the surge was not as tremendous as
gold in the United States.

A
diagrammatic representation of the steep stock market dip and market crash is
shown in the line graph displayed below along with the statements of the then
President George W. Bush and Hilary Clinton pushing the whole world into the
pits of a never ending and massively annihilating war against terrorism. (Halliburton
HAL, 2010)

However
on one side where the people of America where on one hand were preparing
themselves to gather more resilience in order to endure the hefty back-breaking
tax burden that their government was planning to impose upon them in the name
of providing them greater security from turban wearing and bearded men especially
from Asian countries, the other side of the coin was presenting a completely
different and opposite picture. Companies like Halliburton which was
interestingly owned by that time Vice President of United States Dick Cheney was
able to shield his company from the threats of this disaster prior to its
incidence. For better standards of
comparison two tables have been made to outline the differences of price that
took place in the stocks of Halliburton.

Upon
analyzing the two tables of 10th and 19th September, 2001
that have been presented it is comprehensibly manifested that the stock market
fall that occurred as a result of the 9/11 incident could not pose any serious threat
to the stock market figures of the company. Even though the closing price does
show a $3slump but such an insignificant change can easily be attributed to the
haggard performance of the stock market during that time. In addition to this the
split adjustment factor remains the constant, but even if the stock volume
going high the company was able to recover it within a very limited amount of
time. It is also interesting to note that just one day prior to the incident of
9/11 the former key subsidiary of the corporation KBR was awarded the contract
of making concrete efforts for the reduction and non-proliferation of weapons
that can cause massive destruction and obliteration on biological scale.

Furthermore it is
also important to mention here that during the month of September the company
was able to register annual revenue of $13 billion which was greater than $11.9
billion made in 2000.